Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(101)

“Is he so bad? Her match?”

“No. Iskander is perfectly fine. But Sybilla . . . she was in love with someone else.”

“Who?”

Morgan turned and put her hand on his cheek. The contact was sweet and warm and unexpected, and he resisted the urge to put his arms around her.

And then she said, “Me.”

He couldn’t comprehend that for a moment, and then his stomach lurched and dropped two floors. “You— You and Sybilla?”

“No, Jess, that’s not what I mean at all.” Morgan’s hand dropped away and he felt terribly, icily cold now. He felt her move away. The hallway was starting to reveal itself to him in shadows and highlights of dark gray, and he could see her now, just a shape. A cipher. “She was kind to me. She was the only one, at first, and we spent time together. She liked me. I didn’t realize—I didn’t realize at first that she felt more for me than that.” The pain of that was still there in her voice, and he almost winced. “And when I did, I didn’t know what to say, except that I—I couldn’t be with her. I felt awful about it; I think she saw me as . . . as a refuge from Iskander. But it was never . . . I never . . .” This time there was no doubt she was crying; he could hear the agonized hitch of her breath. “Oh God, Jess. I didn’t tell her I was running. I left her here alone. You betrayed me, and I betrayed her. I should have at least tried to help her get out of here, too. I knew she was just as desperate!”

He still felt light-headed; his heart was pounding so hard it hurt. “It wasn’t your fault. You felt you had to help us with Thomas. You know that.”

“It was more than that. I was running away from Dominic, too, that night,” she said. “We both try to do the right thing, don’t we? But no matter what we do, it keeps coming out wrong.”

He put his arms around her, and after a second of stiffness, she collapsed against him. He kissed her cheek, and she put her arms around his neck and held him tightly. “I love you,” she whispered to him. “I never stopped, Jess—I want you to know that. I just—I just felt so alone here, and the only person I could blame was you.”

She loves me. She still loves me. That brought him a stunned kind of peace. “Forgive me?”

She kissed him gently on the lips. Sweet and a little sad. “I did already,” she said. “Now go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”




He was unexpectedly tired, he realized as he headed back to his room, but there was no chance to rest yet. Wolfe’s door was open, and Khalila, Thomas, and Santi were in with him. They all looked up when he passed, and Wolfe said, “Brightwell. In.”

Jess took up a leaning spot on the wall. Wolfe paced, of course, as was his usual habit. Khalila and Thomas sat, quietly watching him. Santi poured Jess a cup of wine, and Jess took a sip before he asked, “So, what’s this?”

“This is us planning what to do,” Santi said. “It’s not going very well. Considering that no matter what we do, there’s very little chance we can break free of this tower, and none at all we will get out of Alexandria alive if we do.”

“Nic.”

“There’s no point in planning when we’re too tired to think,” he said quite reasonably. “Your mother’s not likely to hand us over immediately, is she? Or have us knifed in our beds?”

“No,” Wolfe said. He kept pacing, hands restlessly tugging at his robe. “Hardly her style.”

“In that case, I have some news,” Santi said. “Zara might not be a friend to me any longer, but I do have some in the High Garda I can rely on. I asked them to let me know if anyone matching Dario’s description was captured either in Rome or elsewhere. There have been no arrests. He made it out of Rome safely, I believe.”

Khalila let out a trembling breath and whispered a prayer of thanks.

“Glain’s doing well,” Jess said. “She should be strong enough to join us tomorrow.”

“Or will join us, anyway?” Wolfe asked. “Yes, I know the girl. She won’t stay in that bed long.”

“And Morgan?” Thomas looked at Jess and raised his eyebrows. “She’s all right?”

“Yes. She’s all right. I saw her to her room.”

“Morgan’s in no danger at all here, at least not the kind we’re in,” Wolfe said. “Her problem is more desperate, but less violent. We have a day, two at most, before the Archivist himself arrives at the Tower, and once he does, my mother won’t have a choice but to hand us over. She can turn the Artifex away. Not the head of the Great Library.”

“Then we need to leave,” Thomas said. “Perhaps the Obscurist will send us away to safety?”

“She says she will,” Wolfe said. “I don’t know if I believe her. My mother’s ever been in pursuit of her own agenda. Sentiment doesn’t often enter the equation.”

Like mother, like son, Jess thought, but had the sense not to say it. “Any other way out of here?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. If there had been, Morgan wouldn’t have been here as long as she had.

“It’s possible,” Khalila said slowly. “I’ve been researching the Iron Tower for months. I was doing it for Morgan, in case I could find any way to get her out safely. Just before we left, I found something strange in the records. Very strange. I took notes, but I didn’t have a chance to verify the research.”